


never enough sleep

by Voidromeda



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, Demon Hunters, Fantasy, SMT AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 15:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21102074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidromeda/pseuds/Voidromeda
Summary: No matter how long Abel sleeps after the world ends, it is never enough.





	never enough sleep

**Author's Note:**

> "Write a shitty SMT AU" my brain whispers to me as I play SMT, "write a super shitty SMT AU with no explanation for the Starfighter fandom, c'mon. Do it."
> 
> ... and I did.

It always amuses Abel to go and look back at the generations of people who question science and its advancements, wondering to themselves if they are going too far or if they are not pushing hard enough. Not of that matters now, Abel thinks to himself as he sets down yellowed and old papers, tainted with fluids that he cannot and will not try and identify. They are all dry now, so it is not that it matters – he has something else to do, work to be done.

He looks over the article one more time, just to check, just to amuse himself once more at the accusation of science playing God, and he wishes that he lives in a time in which the existence of “God” is an uncertainty.

Perhaps then he doesn’t have to work about issues like this.

He does not know what year it is, unlike these articles that stamp the date on themselves to try and contextualize their musings and discoveries. Whatever year it is does not matter, nor does the exact time; it only matters when it is morning, and when it is not – at night, demons prowl and dig through the concrete graveyard of a once-futuristic and sprawling city. In the morning, humans walk about to try and find anything, absolutely anything, that will help them survive these terrible, dark times further.

Cellphones, once some sort of communication device to try and reach to others that are hours and hours away, are now just simple tools to try and capture demons to use them as fellow fighters. Abel, himself, is well-versed in that sort of use – though he has a scar on his face that marks him a demon hunter and a corrupted arm to which he stores the creatures in. He passes by many self-proclaimed hunters and often witnesses them glaring at him only to then bow their heads when they see his arm, mangled and covered in scales.

The world is dying, slowly and deliberately, and Abel is merely speeding the process of its death on. The only thing he has to do is to try and find the Devil-Child, kill them, and then bring on the burning inferno of a proper apocalypse to the Earth. It is only once he wipes out all life that he may go back to sleep so that the Earth may await the rebirth of Praxis, who will toil and suffer by his lonesome to recreate buildings for civilisation and then for Ethos to create the first humans on Earth.

This is a cycle never-ending, one that will always result in someone meddling with forces far beyond their understanding which will force Abel to awake to erase the world again.

How many times has Earth lived and died? At this point, what may be a horrific turn of events for this time’s humanity is simply another day for Abel who merely wishes to go back to sleep and rest for at least a year longer than the last. It is almost never enough rest for him, and it always makes him wish for one world where it simply ends due to humanity reaching its natural end.

Leave the work of death to mother nature itself, and not to Abel who has to crawl out from the bowels of the Earth, swimming upwards through magma and digging out dirt to figure out where it is this time that has not been destroyed by the first apocalypse. Still, he supposes that one amusing thing about each cycle of life and death is that humans will almost always find fault with the science that provides and protects them, and there will always be those unethical enough to take things a step too far.

There are also others who wish to dabble in the spiritual as well as the scientific, wondering if there truly is a God out there that creates them only to promptly abandon them and leave them to their devices – perhaps it is the egocentrism of man that makes them think God a scientist, for they are far closer to the truth than they realise. It is only a shame that the unethical are always the ones to try and make contact with the otherworldly.

It almost never seems to end well.

Done with his perusing of articles and journal entries that do not matter any longer, he heads outside of the research facility and back into the remnants of New York. He covers the facility in seals, ensuring that no demon shall enter while making sure that humans know that this is a place of safety. Though demon blood paints many of the floors and walls, as well as Abel’s sword, he is sure that the coming humans will be able to clean this mess up.

They have no choice but to do so.

* * *

He walks through the remains of some sort of fleet – a military one meant for space, that ends up returning to Earth’s orbit only to come crashing down and causing untold amounts of chaos. Or so he imagines. He does not know what it is that may cause such a thing, will never know even, but he walks through the remains and steps over corpses of men in white or black uniforms. A palm on the ship reveals to him some of its secrets – _Navigators _and _Fighters, _their relationships together, all of the interpersonal dramas that occur and, but of course, the mutiny.

There is nothing left to this place, nothing but death and rot and decaying bodies. It is only one body among the dozens that remains in tact; a small, squirrely form – no, more mousy than squirrely as Abel inspects him properly. His body is the only one to not change over the years, looking more akin to him being asleep than to him dead, and Abel smiles sardonically.

_‘And so this is the Devil-Child,’ _Abel thinks with some degree of amusement as he squats down next to the body and runs his fingers through short, black hair, _‘he isn’t even dirty with sweat or grease. It really, really is like he is lost in time like this. I feel sorry for you, Devil-Child.’_

The body’s head lulls into his palm as he lays it flat on the cheek, watches as dulled eyes flutter open and stare up at him, and Abel stares back down with no degree of interest or amusement in his own look. Those eyes are empty, lifeless – stripped away of whatever humanity this man once contains and leaving away, instead, meat to be sacrificed.

“Devil-Child,” Abel says, softly and carefully, knowing better than to antagonise a person clinging onto his humanity, “tell me, before your life is to end, what was your name? Or what did everyone in this ship call you, if you do not want me to see you as you are?”

Devil-Child’s eyes flutter shut then slowly open again, his expression is unmoving and blank, like a still painting than a living being. His chest does not rise or fall with his breaths, not that he is taking any it seems, and Abel cannot hear gentle thumping within his chest nor the rush of blood within his veins. His pallor is a sickly pale, but not a devastating grey, and his eyes gloss with exhaustion.

Again, Abel says, “Devil-Child, tell to me your name. Let it be uttered in the world once more, before you are to end and this world to follow.” he strokes the corner of chapped, dry lips with his thumb, then traces circles on his skin as he continues on saying, “let this end of yours be in peace that you know who you are.”

Silence rings like a gong slammed; it reaches out into his chest and grips tight his heart, squeezing it to let him know of its presence. The vestigial organ feels heavier in his chest now, sinking down further than it needs to within a body that has no need for pretenses such as circulating oxygen or busy hormones. It makes him wish to be able to reach within his own body and damage it by permanently removing these traces within himself, but if not even the most powerful of Demi-Gods can damage him then Abel has no hopes of hurting himself.

A small voice, cracked and hoarse with disuse, breaks him out from his spiraling thoughts and he drags his gaze up to Devil-Child’s face. “… I… I was Deimos.” the voice gasps out, harsh and breaking, and Abel rearranges them both so that Deimos’ head rests upon his lap. “My… a – assign – assigned p-partner was… ah…”

“It is fine if you cannot remember, Deimos.” Abel says, his hands moving away from patting at soft, short hair to grasp at the hilt of his sword. “I will remember you, your fate, and your name. That is all that matters.”

He strikes the Devil-Child down while he falls back into sleep upon his lap, extracts from his body the flames that he will use to burn this world clean, and he readies himself for his own slumber.

No matter how often the world ends, no amount of sleep is ever enough for Abel.

**Author's Note:**

> links to find me i guess
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ourgodslayer) || [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/flynn) || [Tumblr](https://ourgodslayer.tumblr.com)


End file.
